MakeHuman

Is anybody using this software ?Comments ?Some years ago there was an other similar applicationCreatureLabI would have bet on a bright future but , apparently,it failedHonestly it lacked a lot of key features U.V mapping , nude characters only etc

MakeHuman 0.9 seems to be completeIn the future also animation will be added

An ideal solution for poor artists who can not afford to spend a lot of money to purchase from TurboSquid or ecustom made modelsI suppose just a few people have skill and time to create a realistic 3d human model

are there external polygon reduction tools that are capable of creating useful meshes? I mean with textures intact etc?

No. They all suck, even the XSI tool which is really good (keeps UVs etc). Characters are especially difficult to poly-reduce "automatically" because how the loops go is so important for animation. One edge wrong and the whole model becomes crap (for animation).

...suitable for use in a variety of applications and for a variety of purposes – marketing campaigns, advertisements, animations, graphic art, and 3D games, just to name a few.

Not sure if they know a lot about games. If they are really 10k Tris, that's a little too much IMHO. Then again, if it's around 4k, this will work fine in a few years, so you could start today and finish a game in one or two years. Simply add a "buy a new gfx card" sticker to the box, as most latest-gen engines do.